Fated
by o0deesse0o
Summary: For almost all of her life, he had always been with her. He was her best friend, her body guard, her unmoving companion with her throughout everything from her first words and first day of school to her father’s illness and death.


Ever since she could remember, her mother would take her and her brother to visit their grandparents at a tiny village in the west. Every year, they would take the once-a-week ferry across a lake to a quant and modest little village hidden peacefully among greenery and clouds. She could remember for many years as a child gasping every time that ferry would turn the lake bend revealing her mother's home village tucked neatly on the edge of a vast and amazing green forest, almost untouched by time. She could remember the many stories her mother and grandparents told her of the centuries of legends, myths, and superstition thickly embedded in the history of the village and its surroundings wildlife.

Her parents told her many times before that she was an exceedingly curious child. Should anything catch her attention, off she went to see what it was. It was joked that they couldn't leave her alone for one second without her getting into some kind of mess or trouble.

So it didn't surprised her the least when her mother told her of the time when she was just a little over one year old, she managed to disappear out of her grandparent's home and lost in the vast forest behind it. The Great Youkai Forest, they called it. And since villagers grew up with such legends, superstitions still shrouded the area like a thick centuries old blanket. Stories and personal testimonies of disappearances and odd occurrences in the Great Youkai Forest were more than well known among villagers at every generation.

So at the disappearance of baby Kagome, her mother and grandparents were frantic and immediately the whole of roughly 300 or so villagers combed through the forest in search for the wandering child. Her mother told her they couldn't find her that first day. The villagers were sure the small toddler, just barely walking, couldn't have possibly made it so far into the forest. By nightfall, with the forest getting so thick deeper in, it was far too dangerous for them to continue searching. They practically had to carry the sobbing mother back to the village. Her mother had no choice but wait till morning to resume her search. By the next morning, the villagers found Kagome tucked underneath a lone tree, in the middle of a clearing at the very heart of the forest. She was curled up comfortably on a bed of soft green leaves, not one hair missing or out of place, completely unscratched and unharmed and perfectly content as any child would as if she hadn't crawl through a night in a dark and dangerous forest.

A year later, she mysteriously disappeared right out of her grandparent's home once more. And again they found her in the clearing that following morning, unscratched and unharmed. Only, this time she wasn't alone.

Legends and superstitions are serious for the people in such an ancient traditional village. Youkai Forest was named for what it was. Old stories and whispered tales of youkais followed the village and its surround for centuries. Tales of heroic acts and moral doings were told to encourage whilst the more shocking ones told to scare children off misbehavior. Rumors of strange creatures and mysterious deaths are never taken lightly. However, it was said that the Great Inuyoukai was what protected the village from the dangerous youkai seeking to eradicate it so many centuries ago. It was said that for as long as the village was, the Inuyoukai clan would always protect it. It was with the help and protection of the Inuyoukai clan that made the village prosper in peace for so many centuries.

So when the whole of the 300 or so villagers emerged into the large clearing seeing the small baby nestled comfortably asleep next to an unusually massive white dog, speculation erupted, be it fear or awed.

Inuyoukai clan would always protect the village and its inhabitants, it was said.

….


End file.
